Society's ChildS


Stock Up

EU NatGas Spikes Most In Two Years As "Perfect Storm" Unfolds

europe cold front 2026 map
Dutch TTF natural gas futures, Europe's benchmark gas contract, are up 25% on the week and on track for their largest weekly gain since October 2023. The abrupt reversal in sentiment reflects tightening storage levels, short covering, and a burst of unusually cold weather sweeping across the continent.

"Sentiment has completely turned ... you could almost call it a perfect storm," Global Risk Management analyst Arne Lohmann Rasmussen wrote in a note.

TTF futures are set for the largest weekly gain (25%) since the week of October 13, 2023.

Che Guevara

Soccer moms are taking up a dangerous new hobby — becoming ICE saboteurs

anti ice training session bored women
© Protestia / XIn Charlotte, North Carolina, people at an anti-ICE training role-play filming arrests.
During the riots of 2020, many of the agitators who burned down cities and assaulted cops were shadowy Antifa types and anti-social wackos, mostly male and in their 20s or early 30s.

But as anti-ICE protests ramp up across the country, we're seeing a new archetype of trained instigators: regular moms and women of all ages, who are forming reckless resistance groups to disrupt and antagonize federal law enforcement.

The escalation of tactics resulted in the tragic shooting death of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent last week. The mother of three was reportedly an anti-ICE "warrior" trained to physically intervene in arrests.

She had been using her SUV to block ICE as her wife filmed the altercation, in the minutes before her death.

Vader

Dutch activist Eva Vlaardingerbroek is 'barred from Britain' after criticising Sir Keir Starmer

Eva Vlaardingerbroek
Eva Vlaardingerbroek
A Dutch anti-migrant campaigner claims she has been barred from visiting the UK after criticising Sir Keir Starmer over migrants and two-tier justice as well as supporting Tommy Robinson at a London march last year.

Eva Vlaardingerbroek, 29, has shared a Home Office message online revoking her £16 electronic travel authorisation (ETA) to come to Britain, with no appeal.

She says the decision is indisputable proof that Britain is 'no longer a free country'.

'I'm a Dutch citizen, I'm not a criminal, I'm not under suspicion of any crime, they're giving me no due process. And yet there are people crossing your channel illegally and they're able to enter and not me', she said.

The Home Office ruling, which means she cannot visit the UK without a visa, said her potential presence was 'not considered to be conducive to the public good'.

USA

Trump won't be solely responsible

DJT Entangled
© Shrew Views
He might not be responsible in the least, but most people are already convinced he's deeply involved. They view him as a mere puppet of the agenda — and even if that's true, and the agenda wins its war against humanity, it won't be his doing alone. Yet the masses will almost certainly hold him fully accountable.

I have written so many articles that appear to be pro-Trump. They really aren't. I honestly don't trust the guy, and I feel he has been on thin ice since he took office. I understand that every "good" thing he has done — such as cracking down on transgender policies in schools and sports, getting a handle on illegal immigration, brokering historic peace deals around the world (from Gaza to other global hotspots), and setting up a savings account for American children — could all be a distraction. He certainly has done a bunch of things that are downright dicey, but even that stuff, you could, if you chose to, put a positive spin on.

Still, he could easily slip from whatever grace Trump supporters have given him. For me, that has not yet happened. I feel there are mongooses in the hen house, and we've got to do something about them. Bringing in a big fat cobra will eat the mongooses, but then once the mongooses are gone, you've got a big fat cobra sitting around with nothing to do. That's one way to look at it.

But yet another way is to see Trump as a very conscious puppet placement by the agenda. Considering the agenda seems to be infallible, this is a distinct and very real possibility. But is the agenda infallible? Does it have any weak links that would allow for a maverick president to get voted into office? A man with a different agenda, one who is actually in favour of human beings? A cobra snake ready to eat the mongooses in the hen house and leave the hens alone?

Bad Guys

Gen Z protests in Nepal were a planned conspiracy - former PM

K.P. Sharma Oli
© RTFormer Nepal Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli in conversation with RT's Runjhun Sharma
The Gen Z protests that led to the ouster of Nepal's government in September 2025 were unusual and organized in a planned way, Nepal's former prime minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, has told RT India.

Oli resigned as Nepal's prime minister after violent clashes - known as the Gen Z protests - killed 77 and injured more than 2,000.

"That was not a simple and usual thing. That was unusual, and it couldn't have taken place all of a sudden. It was organized in a planned way, it seems even at that time and later on," Oli said in an exclusive interview on Monday.

The former Nepali PM said Sri Lanka and Bangladesh had warned that the protests that happened in these countries could happen in Nepal as well. "Bangladesh and Sri Lanka were telling us... Leaders were talking that such things would happen, and things happened. It was an attack on our democracy to send back them to poverty," Oli said.

Comment: Previously: 'Color revolutions are turning into internet revolutions': Russian experts on Nepal's Generation Z uprising


Stock Down

UK military budget hole is 'classified secret' - defense chief

UK Chief of the Defence Staff at the Ministry of Defence Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton.
© Leon Neal/Getty ImagesUK Chief of the Defence Staff at the Ministry of Defence Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton.
Defense ministry is unable to fund all plans under their current budget due to a $37.5 billion budget gap, according to Richard Knighton.

Britain's military chief has acknowledged that a multibillion-dollar defense budget shortfall exists but said that the details are a "classified secret."

At a parliamentary Defense Committee hearing on Monday, Chief of the Defense Staff Sir Richard Knighton declined to confirm or deny reports of a £28 billion (about $37.5 billion) funding gap over the next four years.

The Times and The Sun reported last week that the Defense Ministry believes it needs the additional money to meet projected costs, prompting the rewrite of a key defense investment plan.

Knighton warned Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves before Christmas of a projected multibillion-pound gap in defense spending plans, the reports said. The government has pledged to raise defence spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product by 2027 and to 3.5% by 2035.

No Entry

Israeli ban on 37 aid organizations expected to have devastating impacts across Palestine

food box
© Ahmed Ibrahim/APA ImagesPalestinian aid seekers carrying Rahma Worldwide aid boxes • Rafah, Southern Gaza
Aid organizations say Israel's recent ban of 37 groups has dealt a severe blow to humanitarian work across Palestine. In Gaza, it means "cutting off a lifeline for over two million people," says Rahma Worldwide's Dr. Shadi Zazzah.

Israel's decision to cancel the registration of 37 international aid organizations at the beginning of the year has dealt a severe blow to the international presence in Palestine. Beyond that, it has delivered a serious blow to Palestinian society itself. The banning of dozens of international NGOs threatens many social assistance and development programs, many of which are Palestinian-run and crucial to sustaining essential services in communities across Palestine.

The ban followed a new set of registration conditions imposed by Israel on international organizations earlier in December, including a requirement to provide Israeli authorities with the personal data of Palestinian staff. Israel said the 37 organizations failed to comply with this requirement, with Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister, Amichai Chikli, saying the decision aimed to prevent the "exploitation of humanitarian aid for terrorism," although Israel has never provided evidence of such links.

The decision includes several prominent international humanitarian organizations, such as Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, the Norwegian Refugee Council, and even the Catholic Relief Services (Caritas), all of which were notified to cease operations in the Palestinian territories by March. The ban does not apply to any UN body.

Broom

Best of the Web: Revolutionary Politics in the Tropics

chavez maduro cartoon figures
A case study on logocratic ideas

Lobaczewski describes his concept of logocracy as a system "better than democracy." Like the Italian school of elite theory, he criticized modern western democracies as facade systems in which power is in fact held by small groups, usually hidden from public view and scrutiny. But he wasn't against democracy per se, as many understand it. His biggest criticism was reserved for universal suffrage, rooted in a faulty view of man that ignores natural human inequality in intelligence, character, and abilities.

Additionally, for Lobaczewski, democracy facilitates the rise of mediocre, demagogic, and psychopathic leaders. Not only are those with ability and character pushed out of politics; democracy also breeds a generalized contempt for wisdom and foresight among the general population and incentivizes short-term thinking and policymaking from their elected leaders. This opens such a society to manipulation and subversion from organized minorities (domestic or foreign), creating the facade mentioned above. Because it lacks any firm foundation in human nature, and thus violates natural law, democracy creates the seeds of its own destruction.

Gavel

Best of the Web: The ICE Elephant: Why the Law Requires All the Facts

blind men elephant illustration
In a famous Indian parable, five blind men are brought to an elephant. Each feels a different part of the animal, and they come to radically different views of what an elephant is. It depended on which parts they touched, from tusk to tail.

The controversy over the shooting of Renee Nicole Good, 37, is a type of political elephant parable. People focus on only certain parts of the story to support what they want the case to mean.

Critics and supporters of the responsible officer have slowed down videotapes that last, in critical part, for only a few seconds.

The only difference is that, in this modern parable, many are just willfully blind, choosing not to see beyond their own rage.

TV

PBS News Weekend signed off permanently... did anyone even notice?

PBS News Weekend host John Wang
© PBSPBS News Weekend host John Wang
PBS News Weekend signed off permanently on Sunday after 12 years on air.Did anyone actually notice?

The answer, quite frankly, is no, and this comes after Congress cut $1.1 billion in federal funding for public broadcasting over the Trump administration's view that the public broadcasting outlet was spewing left-wing propaganda.

"Due to federal budget cuts, PBS News had to make the difficult decision to rework our staffing and programming. This Sunday, our PBS News Weekend team will sign off the air," PBS News Weekend wrote on X.

Starting this weekend, PBS will replace the live newscasts with two pre-taped shows produced during the week to save money and eliminate weekend staffing. Horizons will air on Saturdays, covering science and technology, while Compass Points will air on Sundays, focusing on foreign affairs.

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